Fort Collins, CO – Ex-Lebanon Hostage Thomas Sutherland Dies In Colorado

Fort Collins, CO – Thomas Sutherland, who was held captive in Lebanon for more than six years until he was freed and returned home to become professor emeritus at Colorado State University, has died.

Sutherland died in Fort Collins on Friday at the age of 85, according to Colorado State University, where he taught animal science until he left to become dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science at American University in Beirut.

There he was taken hostage by Islamic terrorists in 1985 and held for more than six years.

“The entire Colorado State University community joins once again in honoring a true hero – who believed that an understanding of agricultural science could bring relief to people and communities in hunger — and that education could be a force for good and light in our world that would transcend borders and differences among nations,” Colorado State University President Tony Frank said in a posting Saturday on CSU’s website.

Sutherland was one of a number of Americans in Lebanon — including Associated Press bureau chief Terry Anderson — who were kidnapped by terrorist groups in the 1980s.

When he was freed in 1991, Sutherland returned to CSU and served as professor emeritus. The Denver Post reported Sutherland took up acting in his early 70s and donated millions to area arts organizations (http://dpo.st/2a51OE0).

In 1996, Sutherland and his wife, Jean, came out with a book about the Middle East and their ordeal titled “At Your Own Risk: An American Chronicle of Crisis and Captivity in the Middle East.”

The Sutherlands were longtime community leaders and volunteers, CSU said. They formed the Sutherland Family Foundation, which has supported many Fort Collins nonprofits.

In 2014 the Sutherlands received the annual Founders Day Medal in recognition of their service to the university, Fort Collins, and higher education worldwide. The medal is given “to those whose pioneering efforts have had an extraordinary influence on the character and development of CSU,” the posting on CSU’s website said.